My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, has said, this matter involves many different aspects, some of high principle, some of good practice and some of base politics. It should be about fair voting, of course. “One voter, one equal vote” is a formula so simple and so powerful that it has underpinned every democratic system that has ever been. That is why I believe in it, and others do too; many people have welcomed that concept.
Somewhere along the line, though, something seems to have changed, and a fundamental principle has somehow been sacrificed during the summer rains. Our Liberal Democrat friends have been wholeheartedly in favour of fair voting. I excuse noble Lords on the Labour Benches of that, of course; there was a time when their forefathers and foremothers stood shoulder to shoulder at Peterloo and marched with the Chartists through the streets of our cities—but then, as Mr Blair kept insisting, the Labour Party is not what it used to be. I wonder whether noble Lords can remember what the Chartists’ demands were. They were universal suffrage—